This Year Will be Different

By Patty Hoisington

To me, gardening is a daunting endeavor. I've always loved the idea of having a garden, but never really got into the gardening part. The Zen of gardening always escaped me. It never was relaxing. Perhaps I'm just lazy and would rather have the beautiful vegetables from our garden magically appear on the kitchen counter, ready to be arranged into an artful soup or colorful stir fry.
This year will be different, though. In years past, we (my husband Jason and I) always started with the best intentions, doing everything we could to make our garden grow – and every year, sometime around the end of July, gardening lost its charm. The lovely greens faded, the unpicked vegetables fell to the ground, and the prairie dogs and raccoons feasted. I must say, though, our past gardens gave us some nice produce, and we were able to enjoy our veggies, flowers and herbs for a few months, at least (this being predominately the result of Jason's hard work).
This time, we are trying something new and different with our garden. This year, we planted seed rather than buying established plants. I bought some of the supplies, and a majority of the seeds, which I helped plant. I am now watching closely for the first signs of seedlings peeking through the soil, stretching toward the sun. I believe this is giving me a closer connection to the plants, thus to gardening. The whole process has given me a desire to see the plants live and thrive and give us food. In fact, I'm looking forward to planting herbs – and taking them on as my responsibility. I've enjoyed taking care of herbs in previous gardens, likely because I know what most of them are, and what they are used for.
My short history of past garden successes and failures has inspired me to get in the dirt, which I don't mind – except for the earthworms!